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Out and about in Kirkwall

On Friday, National 4 and 5 Geography pupils took part in an urban field trip around Kirkwall. The pupils completed traffic counts, environmental quality surveys and building field sketches, which will be used to work towards their coursework for National 4 and National 5. 

Pupils find their way to national final

Congratulations to Lee Taylor (S5), Emma Grant (S4), Devon Nicholson (S4) and Elizabeth Gorn (S3), who have reached the Scottish Association of Geography Teachers' WorldWise Quiz final! To reach the final of this national competition is a huge achievement.
 
The team have spent this year meeting up during lunchtimes to revise the topics for the quiz. The Northern Isles and Highland heat included the diverse topics of Ordnance Survey Maps, Tundra crosswords, International Airline Logos and observation rounds.

Builders do good job but lose out

Two teams of S2 pupils recently took part in the Bridge Building competition supported by OCTG, CITB, Orkney College and DYW. They were given the task to plan and build a bridge, with the winning team constructing the bridge which was the best value for money (load carried/cost). It was a close contest, with Westray taking the overall prize, but both KGS teams should be proud of themselves as they showed excellent problem solving and team working skills throughout the day.

Deputy First Minister visits

Deputy First Minister John Swinney paid a visit to the school on Friday. After being played in by Haadhirgaan, he was introduced to Mr Hawkins and other members of staff then taken on a tour of the school by S6 pupils, visiting a number of classes. He met pupils and staff, including members of the highly successful Young Enterprise company, Estrela, who presented him with one of their lamps.

Photo win for Freya

Congratulations to Freya Fisher, who won the U16 category of Stromness Museum's Cloud Photography Competition.

Rollercoaster ride for KGS footballers on tour

25 KGS boys headed for Blackpool last week on a journey which took in a training camp and matches at four different venues, including an 8500 seater stadium.

Following the success of previous football trips during activities week, we decided to go further afield this time and offer an amazing opportunity to our youngsters. We left on Monday the 28 May and returned on Saturday 2 June.

We played a couple of games on our way down. We dropped our red team off at Dumfries Academy. It was a tough game which was unfortunately lost. Simultaneously we played another game with our blue team against Lockerbie High School. After a difficult start we eventually got the victory. The game was played at Palmerston Park, home of the Championship outfit Queen of the South. It was a great experience for the boys to play in an 8500 seater Stadium.

After the game we made our way to Blackpool. We stayed at the very comfortable Village Hotel. During our stay, our main focus was football training. The sessions were provided by Fleetwood Town FC. The players learned a lot from the coaches, particularly from Michael O’Neill, the Head Scout and Head of the Academy. We played a couple of games against the Academy’s U15s and managed to win one of them. It was a great performance from our red team. We were hoping to see the First Team Manager, Joey Barton, but he never appeared…

Although the main focus was for the boys to improve their footballing skills, we managed to fit in other, non-football related activities. The boys went to the Pleasure Beach, where they experienced the biggest rollercoaster in Europe amongst other rides. They also enjoyed the Blackpool Promenade and had an afternoon of shopping in Manchester at the Trafford Centre. Earlier that afternoon, we were at Old Trafford for an educational session and a museum visit.

We headed up north on the Friday. The pupils had a couple of hours of free time in Inverness in the evening. We took a train to Thurso the next morning and played a game against Thurso High School. An understandably shattered and weakened KGS team could not prevent a 2-0 defeat in a game that we dominated from start to finish without being able to score.

We would like to praise the boys for their behaviour throughout the trip, which was excellent. The coaches at Fleetwood were delighted with our players’ attitude and commitment.

I would also like to thank Northlink Ferries for sponsoring our trip. Many thanks also to the Parent Council for their financial contribution. Thank you to Tesco as well for allowing us to organise a bag packing fundraiser. Thank you to the Indian Garden and R S Rendall for providing us with training tops and football kit. Finally, we would like to thank all the KGS staff members who helped and supported us in organising our trip.

Mr Ben Pesci

Lighting the way to success

Estrela, the KGS Young Enterprise team, won the local finals in a very close competition and are honoured to represent Orkney in Glasgow on 6 June.  In addition to the overall award, the team won the award for Best IT and Social Media as well as Best Trade Stand.  Production Director James MacLeod won the Best Director award.  The team would like to thank everyone for their support in their adventure so far and progress can be seen in their website, estrelaorkney.co.uk and on their facebook page, ESTRELA.ye.

Megan's Westray project wins Fereday Prize

This year's Fereday Prize, for a project on Orkney history by an S2 pupil in KGS or Stromness Academy, was today awarded to KGS pupil Megan Waterston for her project 'Has Westray Processors been of economic benefit to Westray?'. The KGS runner-up was Courtney Russell and third place among KGS pupils went to Josie Groat. First prize for Stromness was won by Charlie Fulton, with Jamie Barbour runner-up and Gareth McLaughlin in third place.

At the prize-giving, which was held in KGS library, the judges commended all the pupils for their efforts and the high standard of their projects, and reminded them that they were lasting contributions to Orkney history which would go on to be used in the future by researchers in the Orkney Archive.

The complete list of prize winners is:

Overall Winner and 1st Prize for KGS
Megan Waterston - Has Westray Processors Been of Economic Benefit to Westray?
2nd Prize for KGS
Courtney Russell - Just Dance
3rd Prize for KGS
Josie Groat - The History of the Drill Hall

1st Prize for SA
Charlie Fulton - Why is There Such a Strong Tradition of Home Brew in Orkney?
2nd Prize for SA
Jamie Barbour - History of Athletics in Orkney
3rd Prize for SA
Gareth McLaughlin - Men of Harray

Very Highly Commended

KGS
Erika Poke - Sandwick Parish FC
Nairn Hall - How Significant was the Find of the Orkney Venus to the Island of Westray?
Ewan Howe - Coast Defence Batteries
Abbey Budge - Who Started the Co-operative now known as the Workshop and the Loft Gallery?
Rosanne Copland - Witchcraft in Orkney
Alex Muir - Geramount
Kate Friel - Rousay School: a history
Emma Rendall - The Otter Bank
Alex Cooper - How did the Nicolson Fleet Evolve Through the Years?
Aidan Brown - How has Hatston Evolved over the Years?
Robbie Kirkpatrick - Tom Ward: the first Orcadian Olympian

SA
Aimee Sinclair - The Stromness Shops
Keighley Clark - The Battle of Jutland in Orkney
Daisy Beckwith-Wyman - The History of Radio in Orkney
Zoe Hourston - Kirbister Farm Museum
Ethank Johnston - Barony Mills
Ava Hamilton - Gorn Farm
Daniel Kirkpatrick - What Makes Yesnaby a Special Place?
Jemma Montgomery - Junior Inter-County

Orkney pupils' strong showing in national event

Kirkwall Grammar and Stromness Academy pupils travelled down to Perth to represent Highland area by competing in the Scottish Schools Badminton Union Secondary Championships on Saturday 10th March. The following pupils had qualified from a local event held earlier in the year:
Junior: Alex Cooper, Calvin Slater, Drew Leslie, Isla Donaldson, Leah Gunn, Cady Shearer (all KGS)
Intermediate: Tommy Ballantine, Aidan Foubister, Keira Stevenson, Megan Clouston (all KGS)
Senior: Willis Deans, Tanya Seator, Ingrid Rendall (all SA)
The standard was extremely high, with players from all across Scotland taking part. All players from Orkney rose to the challenge of playing at such a high level and were a credit to both schools with their behaviour on and off court. Winning any matches at this level is a huge achievement – so ‘well done’ in particular to Tommy, Alex, Aidan, Tanya, Ingrid, Keira, Megan and Willis.
Highlights of the competition included Tommy and Aidan reaching the final on the Intermediate Consolation Boys Doubles and only losing out 22-20. Ingrid and Tanya progressed through the main draw of the Senior Girls Doubles only to meet the no. 1 seeds in the quarter finals and put up a fantastic fight, going down 19-21 & 10-21. Tanya partnered up with Willis in the Mixed Doubles, and after losing their first game to the no. 2 seeds they advanced through the stages of the consolation event and convincingly came out overall winners in the final 21-10 – a tremendous achievement!
For most players this was their first experience of competing in a national event of this scale and they did extremely well against very seasoned opponents. Many players also have another year within these age groups so will be looking to qualify and return stronger next year.
Many thanks to Northlink for providing a discount on travel for the group.

Miss R Reid

Success for Courtney in RSA awards

Congratulations to Courtney Russell in S2, who was placed Highly Commended in the Junior category of the Royal Scottish Academy's Schools Art Award competition. Courtney's watercolour painting of birds on the shoreline was inspired by her sketches from the outdoor sketching activity last June.

Courtney's painting will be on display, alongside the other winners' entries, at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh until the 8th of  April.

Councillor comes to classroom

Today Councillor John Ross Scott visited National 5 Modern Studies pupils to speak to them about the role of a local councillor in preparation for their SQA exams in May.

Callum is top S1 candidate

Congratulations to Callum Croy, who was recently elected in the S1 Modern Studies Mock Election Campaign. Callum and his team pledged to tackle issues such as bringing jobs to Orkney, tackling potholes in roads around the County, improving the shopping experience for residents and bringing back Jungle World! Well done to all pupils who stood as candidates and to all of the teams who worked hard to try to get their candidate elected.

Send My Friend to School

Education is the key to a better future, a route out of poverty and a fundamental human right. But around the world, over 263 million children are still missing out on school. World leaders have promised every child across the globe a quality education; but a key piece of the puzzle is not in place - the MONEY to pay for this education. Leaving 263 million children missing out. The ramifications are global. Yet just at the time it is needed the most, global aid to education is declining.

Kirkwall Grammar School Send My Friend to School campaign champions of 2017, Rajmund Olah and Maya Tams-Gray, invited local MP Alistair Carmichael into school, handing over jigsaw piece schools for him to pass on to the Secretary of State for International Development, the UK Government decision maker on this issue, to call on world leaders to increase their investment in the power of education.   

Rajmund Olah

Orkney Young Carers assembly

Today an S1-3 assembly was addressed by several KGS pupils who belong to Orkney Young Carers as part of Young Carers Awareness Day. The group described their work and showed a video they had produced with Fixers. It can be seen at
www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7FBgHj2KoU
and more information about carers can be found at www.crossroadsorkney.co.uk and www.orkneyyoungcarers.org

Top coach benefits KGS boys

Last Friday coach Steven Ferguson came to KGS to lead a session for the under 15 boys. Steven is Ross County's first ever Academy Director and also holds a UEFA Pro Licence, the highest coaching certificate available and the level required for Premiership managers.

All the boys commented that it was a very enjoyable and worthwhile session. Steven in turn was complimentary about the squad. Mr Campbell and Mr Pesci appreciate him giving up his time to coach the boys.